Discipline(s) B.A.S.E. Jumping
Felix Baumgartner constantly challenges his limits while pushing the physical boundaries of human flight. In 2003 Felix completed an unprecedented winged freefall across the English Channel and he has had his eye on the supersonic grail ever since. With a team of the world's top scientists engineers and doctors behind him he's ready to rewrite history and advance aeronautical research with Red Bull Stratos.
Born in Salzburg Felix began skydiving at age 16 and polished his skills as part of the Austrian military's demonstration and competition team. In 1988 he began performing skydiving exhibitions for Red Bull. The company's out-of-the-box thinking and Felix's adventurous spirit clicked and they've collaborated ever since.
By the 1990s Felix felt that he'd gone as far as he could with traditional skydiving so he extended his canopy skills with BASE jumping - parachuting from a fixed object or landform. He finds that the lightning-fast reflexes and precise techniques required by such low-altitude feats also enhance his high-altitude skydiving technique.
Besides completing his astonishing winged freefall across the English Channel Felix has made world-record BASE jumps and has been nominated for a World Sports Award and two categories in the NEA Extreme Sports Awards. He is also a prominent advocate for the nonprofit Wings for Life Spinal Cord Research Foundation. And his determination to reach the edge of space and break the speed of sound is unshakable. "We can share data that hasn't been available over the last 50 years or ever " Felix states. "That makes me kind of proud.
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